(besides Charles and Diana’s wedding)

I was 38 with a teen-age daughter and a teaching job. It was the summer holidays when teachers and pupils get six weeks off. Veronica* was approaching her 17th birthday and studying for A-levels. One of her teachers was going on an archaeological dig in the West Midlands and her students were allowed to apply for a chance to join the dig, as well. When I heard about it I immediately asked whether I could go, too. It was arranged that Veronica, Betty and I could join the dig for a week!

By the weekend before our departure for a place we’d never been to, I hadn’t received the directions to the dig or any other information. I knew that we would have bed and board – I had paid what I thought was quite a small amount for it – but no addresses! Nevertheless, on the day of departure, we duly departed.

We arrived at Victoria Coach Station, bought tickets to our destination and took our seats in the right coach. When we arrived in the nearest town to the dig, we disembarked, stretched and then wondered how we were going to find out where we were meant to be going. In the end I asked a taxi driver if he knew where the dig was taking place and, though he didn’t know about the dig there, he recognised the name of the hill where it was. He dropped us near to the hill and we started walking along the road trying to find someone – anyone – who could tell us where to go.

After some loooooong minutes (half and hour? more?) we met a young woman walking along this deserted road. Thank goodness! She not only knew where we should go, she was taking part in the dig! I can’t actually remember now how long it took to get to the dig (work had finished for the day!) nor can I remember how we managed to get to the disused army camp that was to be our home for the next week – but, we did!

That week was definitely not a holiday – but we enjoyed almost every minute of it. The accommodation was more basic than most older women in their 30’s would expect – a bed in a room with 10 or 12 others as I recall (I may be remembering it better – or worse – than it was!). We had cooking duty and washing-up duties; I remember that the kitchen sink was surrounded by a very strange smell which I imagined was some sort of fungal growth somewhere. Ugh!

But the actual archaeological work was really great, although exceedingly tough on the knees and the sun shone brightly giving Veronica sunburn on the parting in her hair! She was moved to ‘finds’duty – cleaning those items found in the sweepings made by those of us who were on our knees, brushing the earth with our trowels and our hands, looking for small items which would be otherwise lost until another year and another dig. Her job was under cover and she was safe from the blistering sun. I didn’t find anything much but I remember the girl next to me found some stone items which had been part of a loom, I believe.

My clearest memory of the hours spent digging is of absolutely nothing to do with archaeology, though. We were working near the edge of the top of the hill and there was a gentle drop in front of us, leading to a valley quite far below. I was suddenly aware of the noise of an airplane and, looking up, saw a small air force? plane heading directly towards me!!! I have always been frightened of airplanes, at least travelling in one, but had never imagined being dive-bombed by a plane, but, that day, it seemed that I was going to be crashed into by some maniac in a plane.

I had no time to run but must have looked like a lunatic for a moment or two as I hunched down close to the ground and closed my eyes but, instead of being splatted by a noisy engine and tons of metal, the plane suddenly swooped away!

It turned out that the pilot’s wife was working at the dig and he was just saying hi to her in this wacky way. We occasionally saw similar planes below us flying down the valley – we were near an air force airfield where pilots were training.

Because we hadn’t received the instruction papers before we left Kent, we missed the vital things that they wanted to let us know before we left home – like, we should bring long trousers because of ticks and snakes; we should bring kneeling pads because of the wear and tear on knees; we would be having the usual day off – the Wednesday of the week.

Since we didn’t know about the ticks and snakes we happily played rounders in the long grass – until someone who had received the instructions, told us why we shouldn’t really be running about there. We quit that game! After that we mainly stayed inside in the evenings, playing games, reading etc.

On the day off we went into the nearest big town with nothing planned. We must have known that that Wednesday was the day of the Wedding Of The Year – Prince Charles and Lady Diana. None of us was particularly worried about not watching the wedding on tv – although we did see a bit of it as we walked past a tv shop showing the wedding in the shop’s window. I have to admit that I really don’t remember what else we did on that Wednesday but we probably ate something pleasant, maybe bought some sweets or ice creams, some magazines and then went back to the camp. After the following two days, we made our way back to the large town where we boarded a coach which took us back to Victoria and the train back to East Malling, where we probably all collapsed happily into our comfy beds after watching something ridiculous on telly!

I told the girls I wanted to go back every summer. I can’t remember what they thought about that, but, in the end, that was my only ‘dig’. That autumn, I met Julian and my life took a different turn and my summers were too full of other things.

* Veronica and Betty are pseudonyms.